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Post-election ponderings

For the last l-o-o-n-g period, I’ve observed the electoral circus south of the border; the interminable debacle that will forever be known as the biggest shake-up in the history of USA national elections.

I haven’t felt qualified to make any comments publicly, though the Preacher would tell you I’ve made many private ones, which I won’t express here – only to say that sometimes their volume caused GraceCat to flee and Ernie the parrot to cower.

On the morning after Donald Trump made his acceptance speech, the Canadian immigration website crashed. For hours, I couldn’t access the site, as I often must for work. Presumably, the crash meant too many US citizens were searching for ways to flee a nation they felt no longer welcomed them.

I found that post-election fear-flurry both funny and sad: funny that people would imagine immigrating would be as easy as filling in an online PDF and clicking SEND. (It takes about three years to achieve Permanent Residency status in Canada). And sad that so many Americans would consider abandoning their country rather than working with others to bridge the deep divides the harrowing election campaign revealed, if not aggravated.

More needed, though highly uncommon, is the eternal perspective of an American friend and fellow author. Immediately after the winner was declared, she took to her Facebook account:

“I find myself singularly unaffected by the Trump landslide. I’m just glad the whole ordeal is over. But now that I am up and writing a FB post at 3:39 A.M., I find myself longing for that Peaceable Kingdom, for that benign Promised-What-Will-Be-and-is-Not-Yet. For that realm where justice and equality and kindness are realities. For right now, I must be content to live with liminality, where what is hoped for has not come, but is close, closer than we know.”

Karen uses bigger words than I do – I had to look up the word liminality. It describes the position of someone on a threshold between rituals. Not in. Not out. Someone merely occupying an ambiguous, disoriented state before a new ritual is established. Someone in limbo, the word we more commonly use for the scary transitions we all face from time to time. That unsettling period between our sharp intake of breath after the diagnosis or unfavourable court decision or dreaded call in the night and the altered life that waits around the corner.

My friend concluded her post-election comments with this reminder for believers: “No politician has the power to bring that mighty majesty among us, around us, upon us. So we wait, wait (and pray and work) for that day.”

For that Saviour, she meant. For Jesus who will, as scripture promised, return. On that day, scripture says, everyone (even obstreperous politicians – I just found that word – look it up; you’ll like it) will bow and proclaim that He is Lord.

Until then, I pray with Karen, “Our Father, who art in Heaven…thy Kingdom come, thy will be done…”

Author: Kathleen Gibson

Writer, speaker, and broadcaster, Kathleen Gibson's passions for faith, home, family, and creation are evident in her award-winning writing. The author of two books, West Nile Diary and Practice by Practice, she has also published hundreds of columns and magazine articles in media outlets from local to global. Both her weekly newspaper column, Sunny Side Up, and radio spot, Simple Words, explore the connection between everyday life and Christian faith.